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- Apr 5, 2009
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If Americans want to live the American dream, they should go to Denmark. ~ Richard Wilkinson
There has never been an advanced capitalist country with as weakened and small a union movement as todays United States. (There are very few union members in France, for example, but French unions still have the vast majority of the workforce under union contract.) And according to academic evidence cited in Tim Noahs recent book The Great Divergence, which Nocera uses as the occasion for his column (and which I reviewed in The American Prospect), the decline of the labor movement is one of the primary causes of American income and wealth inequality, particularly among male workers.
There has never been an advanced capitalist country with as weakened and small a union movement as todays United States. (There are very few union members in France, for example, but French unions still have the vast majority of the workforce under union contract.) And according to academic evidence cited in Tim Noahs recent book The Great Divergence, which Nocera uses as the occasion for his column (and which I reviewed in The American Prospect), the decline of the labor movement is one of the primary causes of American income and wealth inequality, particularly among male workers.
Rank
Country
Percent Union Membership
# 1
Sweden
82%
82%
= 2
Finland
76%
76%
= 2
Denmark
76%
76%
# 4
Norway
57%
57%
# 5
Belgium
53%
53%
# 6
Ireland
45%
45%
# 7
Austria
37%
37%
# 8
Italy
35%
35%
# 9
Canada
30%
30%
# 10
United Kingdom
29%
29%
# 11
Germany
26%
26%
= 12
Netherlands
25%
25%
= 12
Australia
25%
25%
= 14
Japan
22%
22%
= 14
New Zealand
22%
22%
= 14
Switzerland
22%
22%
# 17
United States
13%
13%
# 18
France
9%
9%
Weighted average:
38.0%
38.0%